Music
Sphere of Influence
Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original
Robin D. G. Kelley
Free Press
Savoring the Roots of New York Mambo
THE PARK PLAZA CHRONICLES OF VINCENT LIVELLI
Introduction by Robert Farris Thompson
Park Plaza essay by Vincent Livelli
Postscript by Pablo E. Yglesias
Edited by Robert Farris Thompson and Pablo E. Yglesias
Free at Last
Willie Mitchell: 1928-2010
Willie Mitchell slipped away this January 5 just past. Trumpet player, bandleader, songwriter, he was foremost a producer. Not a celebrity producer, he was better than that.
At Ease in Azania
Charles O’Brien’s “At Ease in Azania” was originally printed 20 years ago in an obscure (and now defunct) journal. It will be reprinted this fall in the next volume of “First of the Year”. O’Brien’s piece begins with Paul Simon’s “Graceland” but it rock and rolls back to the 60s before returning to the Motherland to show how pop music may “exist in its time justly.”
Live Lessons
Amiri Baraka has been getting in the groove again during the past year, though as he says to those who wonder why he’s “back on the music”, “I never did go nowhere. Somewhere just runned away from the boy…”
Start Us Up
First of the Month has asked a number of writers to comment on No Direction Home — Martin Scorcese’s recent documentary about Bob Dylan’s early years. Here’s John Leland’s thoughtful response to our call…
Among the Believers
Lifeline, Iris DeMent, Flariella Records
The Way I Should, Iris DeMent, Warner Brothers
What’s the Matter with Kansas? , Thomas Frank, Metropolitan Books
Spirit and Flesh, James M Ault Jr, Knopf
American Jesus, Stephen Prothero, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
Safe American Home
Drive-By Truckers’ new double CD Southern Rock Opera is the most daring and developed expression of rock and roll attitude since the Clash’s Sandinista. The subject of the Truckers’ Opera is the “duality” – their word – of life in the land where blues began.
The Saddest Song Ever Sung
One of the greatest treasures in my memory is the night Billie Holiday introduced me to Miles Davis and I introduced Billie Holiday to the Beat Generation.